


Something Witty

by lets_keep_walking



Series: Four-Inch Little Shit-Biscuits [5]
Category: Trolls (2016)
Genre: Awkward Shenanigans, Car Accidents, Cheating, F/M, New Year's Kiss, hooman beans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 22:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lets_keep_walking/pseuds/lets_keep_walking
Summary: The best and worst possible thing to ever happen to Branch on New Years.





	1. Sinking Ships

**Author's Note:**

> This is like the only series I deeply enjoy because it reminds me of how I was as a kid and wELP here i am now  
> Based on [@ask-artsy-oncie's](http://ask-artsy-oncie.tumblr.com/) human au that totally rocks go check their stuff out

After a quick pep-talk and a brief bout of exasperation, he curled his hand inward and rapped his knuckles against her door. There was a shout, an awful crash, and the door opened inward, revealing a pink haired askew Asian girl with a thick sweater and fingerless gloves. Before he even got the greeting past his lips, she squealed and threw her arms around him.

“You’re covered in dust,” he pointed out, his arms coming around her.

“That’s because we’re redecorating. And it’s plaster, not dust.” She brushed the dried paint out of her hair and adjusted her plastic push-up headband.

“Was Harper here too?” he teased, flicking a strand of blue and purple from her face. The girl in mention suffered from heterochromia, and in turn was fond was using as much color palettes physically possible, often accidentally getting the paints in her hair.

“No,” she replied, jutting her lower lip. “I was painting the walls and got a little spilled on me.”

He chuckled at her pout. “Of course you did.”

“Well, whatever, are we gonna get this new year on or what?” She jumped gleefully. “Lemme just tell my mom and grab my guitar.”

“You’re bringing it?”

“Oh, don’t be so surprised! We always play together on New Year’s!”

He couldn’t really counter her there. It would always be in a car, but they’d stay up and play on their instruments quietly, simply enjoying each other’s company.

So, for her sake, he waited, even tapping his foot a little. He could be too late and then the Creek would wash by. Creek’d had her for most of the year, while the time spent to the two of them was reserved for study groups and play rehearsals—

—Speaking of which, the second they had stepped foot on the high school campus, she immediately signed them both up for drama. After his sub sequential bout of protest, she let up a little and got him into the tech group, so that he didn’t have to be in the spotlight so much.

Maybe it had been their decade-long friendship talking, but she claimed that he was the best techie out of the whole crew. He cursed his willpower for melting into a smile.

After the expected exchange of Japanese, she emerged from the house with a kilowatt smile and her signature beige instrument settled against her chest, fingers clamped on the pick hovered over the strings, waiting and ready.

“It’s gonna be a fantastic day!” she proclaimed, strumming a few strings for the fun of it.

“Yeah, yeah.” He herded her into the car. “Let’s get going.”

Branch’s old pickup was a symbol of his personality. There was a first-aid kit under each seat, a defibrillator in the trunk, accompanied by a week’s worth of food and clothes and his spare leg, along with knee braces under his seat. He was always prepared.

Poppy, on the other hand, was laid back, and continued strumming long into the drive to the beach where the fireworks would be held, easily slipping into the white noise she had somehow acquired long into the their friendship. Riding shotgun,she was leaned against the seat and lazily hummed a tune to keep her interested in the drive.

She decided that giving each other the unbeknownst silent treatment was too far and broke it. “How’s Rose?”

“Which one?” he snorted, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “The cartoon character, the character you’re playing as, or my grandmother?”

“Your gram-gram,” she teased.

“My grandmother.”

“Abuelita?”

“Grand-mo-ther.”

“Granma-ma?”

“What’s with you and referencing TV shows?”

“You started it,” she pointed out, opting to tune her guitar. “With _Rose_. Her name’s Rosiepuff.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Rosiepuff sounds like a cereal mascot!” She tuned her A string.

“It does not!”

“Say any logo,” she deadpanned, plucking her G string. “Do it.”

“Rosiepuffs. Buy them now. Diabetes in every bite?”

“See?” She strummed her guitar, with an impish grin, satisfied in more ways than one.

“Fine,” he griped. “But I’m not letting up on the references.”

“No duh, Watson.”

“I thought it was Sherlock?”

“It’s the irony that makes it funny.”

“Oh yeah?” He stopped at a red light. “What’d you do when _that_ show ends?”

The BBC was her life, blood and soul. She loved that channel, and especially her favorite episodes that’d air when he never expected it.

Once, he had caught her at a loss, surrounded by tissues while blubbering about some woman’s death in an attempt to save her baby. The only thing he could collect was that her name was Mary, Watson’s wife, and that she died in his arms. Poppy had been surviving off of ice cream and cupcakes and had been messed up for a week.

She seemed to contemplate what he said, fingers tapping the strings in thought. “I’d do what any normal person’d do in that circumstance, I guess,” she began slowly. “Forget how to eat, sleep, breathe and live off of internet memes and fan art.”

“Not go out and do something with your life?”

“I would,” she shrugged, fiddling the with guitar straps, “but the outernet is scary.”

“ _The outernet_ ,” he breathed. They glanced at each other for a moment before they broke into boisterous laughter. The light flicked green, and he swerved down the next lane, chuckling.

Their conversations dissolved into bits and pieces that melted into one another and often lost their subject, resulting in uproarious laughter. They defended and battled over miscellaneous topics, like using mousse or gel on your hair and which actor would be the most likely to win an Oscar.

“I’m telling you Branch, Justin’s the _best_!”

“Anna’s better. Making songs in bulk doesn’t justify his quality.”

“Neither does getting into movie just because of the other actors!”

“I’ll admit that movie’s storyline was awful, but that’s where it stops. The acting was _phenomenal_.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“…Do you think Guy is gay?”

“Do I think Guy is gay,” he said it like a sentence, thinking of the sparkle-obsessed young man. “ _Yes_.”

They kept it at for the whole drive, bringing up their friends in whatever in endeavors they were trying to accomplish, joking about movies they had seen, and chatting about their future careers.

“What do you think about majoring in?” he wondered aloud, nodding to the beat of the song she was playing.

She stopped momentarily before picking pack up again. The question hadn’t fully left him before replied. “Languages.”

“That’s gonna be a nightmare,” he warned. They all had different structures, and getting their rules mixed up was bound to happen. Frenchpronunciation felt like each syllable was unnecessary. German was basically putting a whole bunch of letters to create the _ultimate Franken-word_. In Chinese, verb tensewas pretty much non applicable.

In Spanish, verb tense was important. _Veryimportant_. Use the wrong one and your whole sentence changed.

“Not really,” she dismissed. “I’m fluent in three of ‘em.” She ticked them off her fingers.“English, Japanese, and Spanish.”

His eyes widened at the last one. “When’d that happen?”

“Hace un tiempo,” she replied airily, picking back up on strumming her guitar.“Crees que Rosiepuff va a gustar?”

“She’ll love it,” he assured her, trying to let the goosebumps along his arms disappear. So she had somehow developed an uncanny skill that let her understand foreign dialect instantaneously? He had no idea how his grandmother would react to that.

But it was a good skill to have, and would look nice on a college application, so he let it drop.

“So,” she began, and she actually looked nervous. She was tugging gently on a lock of her hair, and he knew she was going to ask something serious. It was her tell.

“Are you going to the pride parade next week?”

He blinked. That wasn’t serious or impending upon their friendship. “Yeah.” He cocked a brow. “Why?”

“I just,” she managed a gulp and squirmed. “ _IwantedtotellyouthatI’mbi_!”

“Cool,” he replied after five seconds of silence. “Same.”

“I know it’s odd but-wait, _what_?”

“I said it’s cool,” he dismissed. “I’m bi too.”

“Really?!” she exclaimed, excited. “Does Rose know?”

“Not yet,” he admitted slowly. “But I’m gonna tell her soon. Is everyone else coming?”

“Pretty much, and-hey, when did _you_ know?”

His sigh melted into a groan, and in the coming darkness, she could she something red spread through his face. “I may or may not’ve had a little crush on Guy back in our freshman year.”

A frown permeated his face when he saw her awestruck smile.

“That’s so cuuuute!” she squealed, waving her fists in her trademark fangirl-excited motion. Her guitar bumped against her stomach, and she began to strum happily.

“Yeah, yeah,” he groused, fighting off his blush. He only had day before she’d start teasing him about it. At least she couldn’t hug him while he was driving.

They retreated back into their simple silence, only asking each other light questions that had no effects of each other’s point of view on the other. He forgot who had started all the demographics, thoughts zeroed in on trying to keep them on the road while simultaneously keeping his focus off her easy smile. For a second, he almost forgot about their New Year’s tradition.

_Almost_.

Then, with her burst of laughter at a sour chord, it came back to him and punched him in the gut, effectively turning his leg(s?) into jelly and quickening the tattoo of his heart.

Poppy was a naturally clumsy girl, and their custom of kissing on New Year’s originally was an accident. It started with her tripping. He had gone to catch her instinctively, and Newton’s third law had pulled the rug from under him and left him sprawled on the ground.

On top of her.

With their lips crashed onto each other’s.

Mortified, he believed that she had thought nothing of it. She had given him one of her concealing smiles and insisted that it was fine, but the same thing happened next year. And the next. And the one following that one, until eventually she stopped being so clumsy and just straight up kissed him.

It was nothing long. Just a tiny peck on the lips. He’d feel the tiniest amount of pressure as she did so, standing on the tips of her toes to reach him, but some evil voice in his head told him to hold her closer and run his hands through her hair, because _damn the gods_ if he told himself that he didn’t feel a little more than an infatuation for the pink-haired girl.

He’d been further mortified when he realized that the voice inside his head was his own.

“So,” he began in an attempt to get his mind off of the future while trying to initiate verbal contact with the person who had sent the flood of memories in the first place. He cursed his brain for running out of witty questions. “What would you put on your tombstone?”

“It’s not even Halloween yet.”

“Tell that to the people who celebrate Christmas during Thanksgiving.”

She chuckled. “Well, I’d say ‘For all my ships that never sailed.’”

He barely resisted to the urge to laugh. “Why?”

“Because some people will think it’s poetic,” she replied matter-of-factly before clicking her tongue, “but others will _know_. Y’know?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, staring intently at her subsequent laughter. “I know.”

So much about taking his mind off of things.

* * *

Each minute that passed was an added mile his heart sped, and breathed a sigh of relief when they pulled up to the wooden gates of the beach. Poppy exited the car and he emerged with his violin case, a basket, and a mat.

Smiling slightly, she reached over and took the mat into her arms, then looked him in his eyes, her own glinting mischievously.

In that split second, he felt something cold grip him. _She hadn’t forgotten._

Her smile remaining, never fading, she skipped away, or tried to get as close to skipping with a guitar strewn across her chest, to look for a spot to lie the mat down.

When you see paintings of beaches, you’re prompted to think that they’re covered in warm sunny days. While they are sunny, they’re far from warm. The sea breeze was always cold, and the water was several temperatures lower. It marveled her how anyone was still swimming, especially with the sun’s descent.

Despite being late, she found a spot far from the shore, since being near anybody of water made him nervous, then sat with her guitar and waited. Sure enough, he materialized next to her with the basket and his case. 

“What?” she teased, settling her pick against the string. “No electric?”

“On the beach? Near the ocean?” he deadpanned. She replied with a strum.

“You gonna help me with my rehearsal?”

“Here? Now?” he protested, despite already taking the violin out of its case.

“Well, yeah, dude. I’ll be your soprano. You be my bass. I know that you know all the words already.”

He griped under his breath, but got into his playing position, fingers hovering over the strings. She counted, one, two, three, then quietly began to strum. It took a full measure of music before he started playing, and a measure more before she started singing. He almost crunched the string with his bow.

Contrary to what she had said, he never joined in, maybe humming a little and nodding along to keep the tempo, but didn’t sing. His voice was too angelic, and he didn’t want to cut her off when she was off to such an amazing start.

Her voice was small, timid, but beautiful. The timbre pulled at his heartstrings and the soothing tone flooded his body with warmth. Shocking realization hit him, and he realized that she’d be playing like that at the play, except that her voice would reverberate around the walls, and he’d be there to make that happen.

She had the habit of getting too lost in the music though, and it’d be accompanied with her rush of tempo, her throwing her head back, and changing up the lyrics just a tad. It was simple, and he refused to believe that it went for only a minute or two, but he gave props to her. Not many people he knew where able to alter words or lyrics off the top of their heads. Maybe her excessive use of partying helped her with that.

He finished before her, she stopped playing a measure after him, and her voice was lost to the wind another measure after.

“Was,” she paused to catch her breath, detaching herself from her guitar. “Was that any good?”

_Amazing! Wonderful! Exhilarating! Extraordinary! I loved it,_ his heart sang. _I love **you**!_

“Pretty good. Really good,” he praised. “You gonna sing that for the play?”

“Obviously, doofus.” She puffed with pride. “Just, without me changing the lyrics.”

“What about the river?”

‘The river…?’ she mouthed, and then perked up.“Oh, you mean Creek. He’s fine.” She adjusted her guitar strap. “Why?”

“Where’s he been?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Drinking green tea, meditating, wondering about the prices of yoga mats…the usual.”

“And…?”

She scowled, twirling a lock of paint-stained hair. “He’s been so…annoying.”

“In a good way?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t think he likes you. Every time we head out he always,” she paused throwing her arms up in exasperation, “asks where I’ve been, what you’ve been telling me, why I still hang out with you…”

“Lemme guess, because my ‘aura’ is poisonous?”

She nodded with a click of her tongue. “Exactly. I barely have any personal space with him around.” She sighed.“I don’t like it.”

A tiny frown pervaded her face, and for the first time, he was not the only one who’d brought her down. He didn’t like the way her lips curled downwards, and something inside him told him to drive it away.

A boom and a crackle made her jump, then sigh once ore. Fireworks meant one thing. The countdown had begun. Only a minute left till they rang in the New Year.

“Well,” she said, and then scooted next to him. “It’s been…a year.”

“A cruddy one,” he rectified. “We’ve lost so many people this time around. And the next one starts with inauguration day. Bernie Sanders was the second coming of Jesus Christ—”

“—and we rejected him again,” Poppy finished with a terrible rendition of his voice, replacing her frown with a grin. “I know, I know, you’ve been telling me ever since he lost the debate.”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“That’s a whole lotta gospel, then,” she mused, getting closer. She felt warm, and the fireworks lit up the night sky.

Everything took on a dream like quality. There was the shout of one, the Asian girl smiled up at him, wished him a happy New Year’s, then ever so slowly, pressed her lips to his.

Their kisses were brief. They only lasted a second.

They were _supposed_ to last a second. Whatever had been going down with her suddenly surfaced, and with a sigh, she brought him closer, crashing her lips onto his with a breathy whisper. Against his logic and reasoning, he reciprocated, an arm coming forward to wrap around her waist and a hand entangling in her hair, taking greedy fistfuls as she pressed herself closer to him.

This was so _new_. What had he done to deserve something like this? This was his best friend, someone already in a relationship, and he was—

—was he even kissing her anymore? All he could decipher from his hazy point of view was the fire in her eyes, and the sensation of something running through his hair. He groaned, and tugged her closer.

They were probably making a scene, looking like those crazy forehead-over-ankles couples that couldn’t keep her hands off of each other during any point in time, but at the moment, she couldn’t care less. The only thing her dizzy head even registered was how perfectly he fit against her, and how his hair tickled her palms when she ran her hands through it. His following groan and hungry press of his lips told her what she was doing was good, and her brain supplied the words that her lips were too busy to form.

_More._

And with a shuddering gasp and a wet pop, they pulled away, burning scarlet, while trying to catch their breaths before looking at each other, terrified.

She no longer felt warm. Nothing bright glittered against the night sky.

“Let’s…” She got off of his lap (how did she even get there in the first place?) and sat next to her guitar. “Let’s agree to never tell anyone about this.” She swallowed. “Especially not Creek.”

“Agreed.”


	2. Hallelujah

Her face was still red when they left.

The fireworks ended long after their little incident, which meant they had to sit in a relative proximity and think about what had just transpired. None of them made a peep. Poppy didn’t even play her guitar. When the last of the fireworks glittered in the sky, they packed up silently, loaded the truck, and took off into the night.

The ride was suffocating and quiet, the only thing they could hear was the occasional sigh and the tires over the road. Poppy brought her knees to her chest, and bowed her head; she was thinking, and probably also choking on the tension their presence made.

The ride back was always faster than the ride there. Whenever you’re going somewhere new, your brain ‘slows’ time down in order to jot down memories of everything you see. When you’re heading back, your mind has less to record and leaves time alone.

Of course, that was factoring out all the pressure that they had acquired.

Despite the fact that they went on the trip every turn of year, that was still it. A year. Their minds still had so much to record. Bright neon lights, fast-food logos, the tell-tale sounds of traffic, sights, sounds, touch, taste; kisses, and _voiceswhispering their names_ —

As if on cue, they both glanced at each other, blinked, then returned to their normal stature, faces still burning scarlet. Poppy sighed, and when he turned to look at her, her hair was out of its tail and obscured her eyes. He didn’t have the heart or the nerve to tell her who she looked like.

He felt revolting. What was wrong with him? Why had he been so stupid? Now he was the one who virtually set impending doom upon their friendship.

And yet, he wanted to earn her forgiveness. It didn’t matter who was romantically entangled with her, as long as she remained the way she was with him, his best friend, then he’d be happy. Now look, he had gotten into this huge mess and it would take nothing short of a miracle to get him out of it.

What if Creek found out? What would he do? Poppy had already recalled Creek’s habits of being unbearably nosy a nuisance, what if he started to get physical with her on top of that?

If something like that were to ever occur to her, he was going to do something about it that would probably land him in hot water seasoned with guilt, loss, and a restraining order.

When they had finally pulled up to her home, she got out of the car with her guitar and her bright pink scrunchie wrapped around her wrist. She muttered a quick goodbye in Japanese and procured a key out her pocket.

She opened the door, took a last look at him, then entered, and the door closed shut.

He sighed and leaned into his seat, opting to look to the ceiling. He barely knew any of her dialect, but had picked up on greetings. She only spoke that way when she was filled with too many conflicting emotions. She was still thinking.

He pulled up to his own home and got into the house. It was both a blessing and a curse to live next to her, to know that someone he could console could be so out of his reach.

It was an hour or so passed midnight. His grandmother was sleeping, which meant that the whole house was relatively to himself, ready and waiting for his inevitable sulk party.

Branch was the kind of guy who was centered on things and their designated uses. That’s how the world worked, and that’s how he worked. Screwdrivers were meant to seal screws. Nails held things together. A defibrillator provides a shock to the heart when there was a life-threatening arrhythmia present.

What use did sadness bring? It wasn’t like he couldn’t go over there to talk to her. Her mother was a kindly woman and would welcome him instantly; she was used to unexpected surprise visits from him.

But would she want to talk to him? Or even look at him? The thought dropped his heart into his stomach, and he hated himself for feeling that way.

He was trained. He knew CPR, was able to use an AED without harming himself or others, and could diagnose illnesses just by hearing the symptoms!What was the point of sorrow? All it did was hold lumps hostage in your throat and send grief flowing from your eyes. It was excessive, and annoying! Wasn’t he stronger than that?

How could he stand to be here with it all? Drowning in all that regret, wouldn’t anyone in his situation want to forget about it?

Yes, of course he still loved her, and he was always thinking of her, but was there really anything he could do? What was the use of feeling blue?

He sighed, and fell face-first onto his pillow. It would be a long night.

* * *

She hadn’t felt this worse since she watched Mary’s body fall limply to the ground.

Everything was so quick. One second and was with him, all over him, _earnestly_ , and then in the next she was back in her room, lying on her back on her bed in her pajamas and wondering why humans were built with the capacity to feel emotions.

Branch was her friend, right? Friends didn’t just start kissing each other like bunnies in the middle of July, correct?

She groaned, and turned on her stomach, ignoring its grumbling, choosing to think for a while. What was going on with her? She already had somebody! Where were her priorities? Did she—

She pushed that question out of her head before the signals in her brain could even think about finishing the thought. Still, though, what had she done? The worst part was that their kisses were supposed to be chaste! They weren’t long or drawn out, nor did they prompt new feelings to flush through her system!

They were _friends_! They knew each other their whole _lives_! They’ve been close enough to each other that things between them never got awkward! Right?

She didn’t need this to disrupt everything they worked to achieve. He was sort-of comfortable around people, and he made an effort to at least see the slightly more illuminated side of things. And she appreciated him for that.

Did she—like him? Love him even?

Well of course she did; she loved everybody!

Something inside her growled. Did she love him? Did he make her laugh, feel better? Was he always there for her, even when he was facing his own trials? Did she count on him? Was the world a little brighter when he was around?

Something glittered in her eyes when the answer was affirmative for all of those rapid-fire questions her brain sent her.

But what about Creek? Sure he was still…himself and all, and he did prove to be nice at times, but it wasn’t like she could just break off their relationship! Plus, what if she did, and it turned out that Branch didn’t feel the same way? Where would she be then? Sitting on her bed consuming a bowl of Neapolitan icecrea—

—See? Branch was even there for her then, too!

But she had never fallen out of love with anybody before—this was her first time realizing that she was harboring feelings for someone she had been close to prior to a relationship, any relationship, really!

What if he didn’t feel the same and just wanted to remain how they were? She’d initially be heartbroken for a while, but she’d move on with it. That’s how the world worked, right?

Yet she couldn’t see herself with anyone except for him, and she felt a little stupid for thinking so. She liked his stubborn attitude, she enjoyed his sarcasm. He made her laugh with witty jokes that often questioned humanity, and a part of her didn’t mind that he wasn’t happy all the time because whenever she was with him, he wasn’t as grumpy as he usually was. He made her _happy_. Did she do the same for him?

What was she going to do? What was she going to tell Creek when he inexorably found out via his mental connection he shared with her? There was no way that he’d take it lightly, even if it was after he downed three herbal teas in a row, especially since he kept ranting on and on about how much of a bother Branch was, which baffled her to an extent.

Why did Creek of all people hold a grudge for Branch? She thought he was fine with everyone, but whenever she brought up the particular conversation, he’d dismiss it with some incoherent guru nonsense. Just thinking about him worried her.

Being with Branch was so easy. Talking to Creek was unnecessarily complicated.

And Branch—no, _she_ was the first to initiate the kiss. The time had ticked over to twelve, right? And then she kissed him. Then, she—

—started getting into it a bit too much. Probably startled some people and or traumatized a couple of kiddies. She had somehow slid into his lap, though, his hands had sifted through her hair, ticking her scalp, then she—

And he—

Poppy groaned, frustrated, and flew the bed’s duvets off of her. She couldn’t even _think_ straight? What was wrong with her? Even from afar, when he probably was off doing something-or-whatever, he was still having a major impact on her!

Her guitar was propped up on the nightstand, and was suspiciously angled in her direction.

She glared at it. “Stop looking at me like that.”

He reciprocated! Didn’t that mean anything?

Poppy shook her head, deciding that it was a heat of the moment thing. He’d have no reason to like her.

But she had plenty of reasons as to why she loved him.

 

So many conflicting emotions. What would Branch say? What would Creek do? What would her friends think?

What was _she_ thinking? She had someone already. She wasn’t supposed to care so much about Branch; she was supposed to care about Creek!

And she couldn’t even do that?

She sighed into her pillow.

“I can’t take myself seriously anymore.”

She was not going to get any sleep tonight, that was for sure.

* * *

They avoided each other for the next few days, but were never really able to leave each other’s minds. Poppy, instead of going out and being social as per usual, decided to stay in and huddle under the safety that several duvets brought her, thinking about nothing but their New Year’s exchange.

Things had gotten bad. Real bad. She couldn’t do anything without it remotely feeling like something Branch’d do, she couldn’t stop thinking about him, nor could she stop immoderately analyzing that stupid kiss!

And yet here she was, with no regards of the time, thinking of nothing but _him_. She might need to get a hobby. Or some sleep.

But she couldn’t help but think about it! Any other person in her situation would do the same, right?

She sighed and stumbled out of bed. She needed to get her hands busy. She needed something productive. She trekked down the stairs and into the kitchen, before being briefly startled by her mother’s presence.

“Mom?” she asked tiredly. “What’re you doing up?”

“ _Musume_ ,” she said gently, placing a kiss upon her forehead. “I could ask the same thing about you. Is something wrong?”

Poppy smiled inwardly. Her mother always knew when something was troubling her.

Speaking of mothers and parents in general, Poppy didn’t have a father figure in her life. Her mother had never found ‘the one’ but did want a child. So she took up a donor. Granted, Poppy had no idea who he was, but it was nice to think that donor number three hundred and twenty-two might be happy with the results.

Her mother led her to the couch, and sat with Poppy’s head in her lap while her legs were crossed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” her mother asked kindly, braiding her pink strands of her hair, and Poppy sighed. Talking to her mother was so easy, and that was a surprisingly hard thing to find with other people.

“Have you ever…fallen outta love with someone?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” her mother replied, her eyes laughing. “Does this have anything to do with Creek?”

Poppy nodded. “He’s nice and all, but I’ve been thinking.”

“About?”

“…Brandon.” Her face turned red.

“That bad, huh?” her mother teased, and that meant that she had subliminally given her approval.

Didn’t mean Poppy couldn’t be embarrassed though. “Mom!”

“I’m teasing, _Musume_ ,” her mother replied, stroking her hair. “Does he make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Do you like spending time with him?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you like him?”

“Definitely.”

“Then I see no problem with it,” her mother concluded, helping her daughter up. “Come, let’s make some tea.”

The best thing about her mother was that when a serious conversation would come to an end, her mother wouldn’t press it, and would make green tea for the both of them.

* * *

He couldn’t deny the worry that nagged him. He hadn’t seen her in a couple of days. Had she even left the house? Was she okay? Was it his fault that she was so down?

He decided that being immature and refusing to see her was a knee-jerk reaction, so when the sun dipped under the horizon and when he was sure his Grandmother was asleep, he lugged a ladder from the garage, and set it up next to her window.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

Her hair wasn’t in its tail and was frazzled, her eyes were shot, tired, and she was pacing around her room, muttering illegibly, trailing her blanket behind her. He watched her for a while, confused as to why she’d let something like this get her down instead of bouncing back up from it, and then rapped his knuckles against the window.

She almost looked terrified to see him.

“Hey,” he greeted gently when she opened her window. “Are you alright? Do you wanna talk?”

She recoiled as if she’d been slapped. He really cared about her that much? Even when he was in the same state of disrepair as she was?

Something in her heart melted at that, and her face crumbled. On cue, he immediately hopped in the house and closed the window, closing the distance in a hug. She smiled into him, her face under his chin, and he rubbed her back slowly, trying to calm her down.

“Thank you,” she spoke quietly, and he sighed. They were on speaking terms again.

“I want to apologize,” he replied, grasping her shoulders so he could look into her eyes. “I shouldn’t’ve done that to you.”

“You didn’t do anything to me!” she exclaimed. “I was the one who started it!”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I did something that you didn’t like. I hurt you.” He watched something glitter in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t apologize, I was the one getting crazy with it, it’s not your fault!”

“It’s not yours either.”

“That doesn’t mean you should blame yourself,” she insisted, poking at his chest. “It’s not your fault.”

“But—”

“Shh.” She brought a finger to his lips, raising her brows in a ‘try me’ kind of notion. “Say it with me. “It’s.”

“It’s.”

“Not.”

“Not.”

“Your.”

“My.”

“Fault.”

“But I—”

“Shush,” she demanded. “It’s fine.”

“You’re too nice to me,” he grumbled, and she almost laughed.

“Your too sweet for your own good,” she countered back just as evenly, and he chuckled.

Then he sighed, and carefully stripped away the covers from her. Something was obviously wrong, her hair was down, which would originally indicate that she was rehearsing, but none of her scripts were out, and her white noise fan was off.

“Are you okay?” he murmured. She glanced up at him, and then wished she didn’t, because although she couldn’t see it, she could feel the blood slowly crawl onto her face. She hissed at herself inwardly. She couldn’t even _look_ at him without turning into a complete mess?

“I was just thinking,” she replied timidly, trying not to let anything show in her voice.

He scoffed. “Alright, whose house is burning down tonight?”

“Wha-No!” She whacked his side gently. “And it did not burn down! It caught on fire. There’s a difference.”

She was talking about the time where they had almost burned her shed down during their eighth grade year. It was the New Year, and they had found old sparklers in the garage. They put two and two together, and almost ended up with a charred shed thanks to Poppy’s careful planning.

“Alright Miss Technicality,” he grinned. “Wha’d’ya wanna tell me?”

_Where do I begin? That you’re awesome? Amazing? That I love you?_

“Well,” she began hesitantly, “do you—I mean, this is just a hypothetical, what-if question y’know? I’m not really getting anything out of it, but— do you…do you like anybody?”

She was actually expecting him to say no. He was Branch after all. No one he knew really wanted to spend one on one time with him. Excluding her of course. But he smiled at her like he knew what she was really implying, rocked on his heels, and answered with a definite nod.

“Oh,” she seemed surprised, but recoiled from it. “Mind if I ask who?”

If he already had an interest in someone, that’d be fine. As long as he wouldn’t change, that was what mattered to her.

“You don’t need to,” he whispered into her ear, his voice sending a shiver down her spine. “She’s standing right in front of me.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide, burning crimson, in disbelief. Was he talking about the same person?

“Me?” she asked, pointing at herself, voice cracking.

He laughed. “Is there anyone else in the room named Poppy?”

She stuck out her bottom lip in a sorry attempt at a glare. He grinned impishly, and brought her in closer, resting his cheek atop her head.

“When’d you know?” she asked quietly, voice muffled by his neck. She was so silent, so small. Did she even return the gesture?

“For a long time,” he replied. He sounded far away.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

He blinked, bemused. “I had a good reason to. I was always so mean to you.”

“So? You could’a told me!”

“I threw your ukulele out the window in fifth grade.”

“I needed a new one anyways. You were mean to everybody!”

“Exactly why I didn’t tell you,” he sighed, tilting her chin to look at him. “I’m the bad guy. No one’s supposed to like me, especially someone like you.”

“And yet,” she replied with a giggle, and then looked up at him. “Me too.”

He raised a brow in question.

“Dummy,” she pouted. “I love you too.”

Then she crashed her lips onto his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Branch
> 
> my buddy boy
> 
> sometimes you just need to shut up


	3. Forever Joyful!

He received his first violin when he was ten.

He had almost no idea why. When he saw people playing on television, the looked so formal, so composed, like they actually looked like they knew what they were doing. It was nothing special, just a two-to-four size instrument that vibrated the air when a stick containing hair rubbed against it, but it helped him in more ways than he could imagine.

Whenever the pressure of self-hatred or the stinging in his eyes or the suffocating feeling of _never being able to do anything right_ became too much to ignore, he'd glance over to his case.

And then he'd start to play.

Sure, the bow hairs cut whenever he was under a particularly bad spell, sure, he played a sour chord several times, and sure, he ended up in a worse shape than when he had started, but music was his thing, no matter how many times he'd vehemently refuse it. The notes made him feel better. Hearing the smooth tones he could emit, knowing that he was capable of doing something right quelled some of his inner turmoil.

It felt like a job. Years of playing on an eventually evolving instrument in hopes to alleviate the pain, and somewhere along the lines of pain and regret, he ended up falling into step with it, playing till his heart had relieved some of the tension it had acquired, ready to hold the next load of self-hatred.

So, on a whim (something he would never do, mind you), he took up a philharmonic class during his freshman year, because, why not? He had been teaching himself for almost four years, what harm could a class on the subject do?

It did no harm at all.He made it into chamber by his sophomore year.

The best part was when she decided to start playing with him. They didn't really start per se, it was more of a 'walking in on him playing an eerie tone of music and joining in because it happened to be one of her favorites' sort of thing. It just happened, either way.

A violin and a guitar. Unorthodox as you could get. The first few weeks of playing with her proved to be quite the challenge, seeing as he couldn't keep up with her odd form of tempo. As the weeks progressed, however, he took the challenge as a chance to improve his speed, and she took it as the time to get to know the grump that would grind her invitations under his heel.

A week after their successful 'jam session', as she so dotingly called it, in addition to eating a slice of toast with jam, her voice was added in the mix, and he found what his violin was missing.

* * *

The Asian girl crumpled into his front, and pulled the polka-dot patterned blanket they were huddled in closer to her so that she could stuff her face into it. He patted her back, whispering words of reassurance and encouragement, before procuring another box of Kleenex.

Even after confessing his feelings to her and how he felt about her and how he'd stay up at night _thinking_ about her a couple weeks back, it was nice to see that Poppy hadn't changed, excluding the few kisses they'd get in during their schedule. She still acted like his friend while they were around the general populous. She still smiled and nodded to every ludicrous thing Creek'd say in hopes to get him off her trail. She still initiated hugs on the hour when they weren't necessary.

She was still hung on the BBC.

"It's just," she sniffled when she surfaced, sneezing into a tissue. It was their standard Saturday movie night. Her hair was out of its tail and framed her face, and the fuzz from the blanket made her look more pink than usual.He didn't mind, and brushed the strands away whenever they got too close to her eyes. He liked that about her.

"Moriarty told Euros about Molly," she recalled, her voice cracking, "the _one person_ that'd get under Sherlock's skin the most and what does she _do_?"

"She lies in order to--"

"She lies about putting bombs in her apartment so that Sherlock could tell Molly that he loved her and she was just _so sad_ and I'm starting to question if he actually meant it and Molly didn't want to say it because she knew it was true and she was so _heartbroken_ and now my heart _hurts_!" She flopped her arms to her sides and grabbed another tissue, eager to bury her nose into the festively patterned strips of paper.

She sniffled and pulled back to look at the smiley faces. The irony.

She didn't allow him to continue. "The worst part is that even in his death, Moriarty was still able to 'burn the heart out of him' and now I think I'm _dying_." Her body went limp onto his chest. "You know what to put on my tombstone."

He laughed, but didn't bother to move away, contemplating. The mystery man was an anomaly in himself. He didn't bring his personal opinions into his work, but when he did, it was over the people he had close to him in his life. Like what he had done with the American terrorist after he had struck Mrs. Hudson across her face.

"What would you like for me to write in your obituary?"

"That they'd better give the future generation season five. They're gonna need it."

"What would you have died from?"

"A few broken ribs," she listed from memory, and her sniveling began to quell. "Fractured skull."

He hummed, gently petting her hair. "Suspected punctured lung?"

"Mm-hm. I fell out of a window," she drawled in an exaggerated British accent, and she began to laugh.

"But," she sighed, “look at them. _Look at them_.” She gestured to the bright TV screen.

"I _am_ looking at them.”

“Wouldn’t,” she began, sniffling once more, “it’d be nice to see them _happy_?”

“Then no one’d watch it,” he reasoned.

It wouldn’t be realistic was what he was trying to sugarcoat. It wouldn’t be relatable if everything in show didn’t fall completely to pieces. Nothing in life was ever like that. No one’s existence was completely filled with sunshine. He hugged the pink-haired girl closer, resolving to bring Neapolitan ice cream sometime soon.

What a tender world that would be.

* * *

"Alright, alright," Poppy waved her hands around to settle the crowd. "Calm down!"

Sundays was when her oddball group friends (or, the 'Snack Pack', as she so lovingly called them) would gather in her room to talk about how their week had gone, inform anyone if anything new had come up, or just hang out and complain about how useless the education system was.

Poppy was trying to talk to them about her certain change in relationships, and purposefully left Creek unknown of their whereabouts, something she was planning to address in the future.

"Wha's the sitch?" Guy, a lanky glitter-adorned Caucasian asked, twisting a corner of his sweatshirt around his finger. Next to him, two near-identical Jamaican girls sat side by side on Poppy's bed, nodding to his question. One twin bore a tattoo on her left ankle, and the other on her left upper arm, dubbed Chenille and Satin.

Suki, a Filipino girl with a cotton crop top and shorts listening to music on her bulky headphones laced her arm around Chenille's waist, and the Jamaican leaned onto her shoulder.

"You've noticed that Creek's absent today," Poppy said, in her official matter-of-fact tone of phrase. Sitting down on the carpet next to her was Branch, and ever so slowly, he snaked his hand behind her to reach her own with his and felt her relax.

Her group of friends perked in interest. Suki removed her headphones at Chenille's look of surprise, Satin looked over to Poppy in question, and Cooper, a young black man with a pink-and-red stripe scarf arched a brow.

"Is something wrong, Poppy?" Biggie, a tan pudgy man with a calico in the crook of his arm asked. Next to Cooper were Smidge, a sophomore who had every exercise brand memorized by heart, and Fuzzbert, Smidge's mute brother.

Satin and Chenille were Jamaican. Suki was Filipino. Biggie was Canadian, Cooper was Haitian, Smidge and her brother were Native American, and Guy was Caucasian.

They were all considered different. They were all considered weird.

That wasn't how they saw each other. People were something they all had to get used to when they first got to know each other. It was confusing and odd and unfamiliar, but after a decade, it grew on them. To take their minds off of the invasive feeling strangers gave them, they gave each other fun nicknames to toy with, so much that they almost forgot their own names.

"Nah, 'M fine, I've just...been thinking," Poppy offered cautiously, eyeing her friends' faces for their reactions, which didn't seem to be as prominent as she'd thought. The only face that didn't seem to change was Suki's and Poppy sent her a mental equivalent of thanks.

"That's dangerous," Satin drawled in her Jamaican accent, which got a laugh from a few of her surrounding friends. Chenille gave her a high-five. Behind her, Branch snorted.

Let it never be said that Poppy's face didn't have the capability to blush, and that's exactly what she did, with a groan. "Why does everyone say that?"

"Because it's true?" Guy asked, ticking a list off of his fingers. "There was the bonfire, the camp in the woods, the pool, the bake sale..." He blew a lock of his dishwater blond hair out of his eyes. "Need I go on?"

Poppy huffed, and would have crossed her arms if one of her hands weren't discreetly entwined with Branch's. He gave her squeeze, and she took a breath, trying to set herself back on track.

How was she supposed to tell her friends about the one person they never suspected?

"It's...about Creek," she began slowly, and every face in the room, save for Branch's, went on alert. It was their mission statement to help each other out of tough situations, especially ones dealing with certain partner problems, but how was she going to get them to support her decision?

"Are you two alright?" Chenille asked, genuinely worried for her friend, her accent thickening. "He didn't do anything to you, did he?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Poppy waved her hands around frantically. "He didn't do anything!"

Creek was actually a pretty decent guy, from what she could collect. He just didn't understand the meaning of personal space, and she was glad to clarify everything up for everyone. Her friends were a very protective bunch. If you even have the slightest solitary fraction of a _sliver_ of an inch of a _thought_ about hurting someone in their group, they would find you.

And build a house around you.

_With no doors._

"Oh," Chenille started, seeming to calm a little, settling next to her girlfriend. "Good."

"So, what's the problem?" Cooper asked, and Poppy bit her lip, fiddling with Branch's hand. She took a deep breath, which prompted a few of her friends to glance at each other with uncertainty. She was only serious if she had to go slow on the topic.

"I've...I've been seeing someone else."

To her surprise, no one said a word. Not even in an intake of breath or a shout or an exclamation of how she do something like that to someone. You could hear a pin drop on her carpet.

There was a click and Poppy knew instantly what they were looking for. They wanted an explanation.

"Look," she ran her free hand through her hair. "Creek's a good guy, he's real nice. I just don't want to lead him on like this anymore, it's not right."

They continued to stay silent, and Poppy didn't even ask them to speak. She continued her speech.

"And uh, the person I've been with this entire time is," she paused, took another deep breath, and then raised her intertwined hand. "Branch."

"Hi," he said, sheepishly, noting his voice crack. Wonderful. This was just a perfect way to set off on the wrong foot.

Their reaction was instant. The glanced at Branch, registered his appearance and his air of careless indifference and his whole grumpy attitude, and then looked to Poppy in question. Severely.

"I know, I know,” Poppy reassured, never letting go of his hands.“It was new for us too."

It was not new for them, despite Poppy's claims.

It was foreign and unorthodox and just plain _ironic_ for them. To think that someone with such a positive outlook on life in addition to maintaining a reputation as one of the happiest people ever known to exist was coupled with someone who refused to the see the _vaguely_ illuminated side of things while still managing to hate everyone in the process was a joke worthy for a king, or, in this case, several high school students living off of three hours of sleep and caffeine.

But the same happy-go-lucky bright-haired Asian had managed to get the grump to fall in love with her. That was an accomplishment that deserved physical commemoration.

She had no idea what to tell them when they asked her how she had managed to figure out when she harbored feelings for him, because how was she going to sum up an _entire lifetime_ in one afternoon?

Feelings, memories, whispered words and hands chained together in promises of comfort, staying with him during his parents' funeral, finding out her father was a literal sperm donor and would never have the chance to meet him, plays, concerts, Aida, _NewYear's_ —

All she could tell them was that their relationship was standing for a long time. It just took them a while to find out.

* * *

She knew how to sneak into his home just as well as he did. It was an ancient practice called 'Using the front door'. Unbelievable, right? That you would just knock on the door and his grandma would let you in without a second thought because she knew you too well? Branch should use it sometime. It'd make for more welcome greetings and less accidentally karate-chopping his guts because he just crawled in through her window.

She had come at the right time, already hearing the smooth notes emitting from his room, and blinked, bemused, not because of the playing, but the type of music he was playing. It was upbeat. Kinda like the dubstep songs he would forbid her from playing on his radio because they were like cheese grinders on his ears, but in Beethoven's style. How would that even work?

Was he okay? What kind of spell was he having now? Was he even in a spell?

Silently—as silent as she could be with a bulky guitar strapped to her chest—she crept up the stairs to his room, and immediately noted how the music changed when she entered, and he was looking at her the entire time, giving her a lopsided grin.

She smirked, and sat down on the chair he had already gotten out for her, settling her guitar close to her chest.

It didn't feel like a job anymore. Years of playing on eventually evolving instrument with someone who he was pretty sure was the only living person who didn't hold a grudge over him, excluding his grandma, and Poppy's mother.

Usually, when thinking became too much to concentrate on, he'd turn to his case and pop it open, already plucking at the strings because he had fallen into step with the girl who decided to play with him.

A violin and a guitar. Someone as clean-cut like him and someone with a capability of possibilities like her. Unorthodox, unconventional, and about as odd as you could get. What kind of music could you get out of the duo, anyway? Making music with each other was a challenge enough. They'd start, they'd stop. She'd get confused on where he was and he'd get frustrated at her lack of an inner metronome. They'd make huge mistakes, and end up not playing for an entire day.

But they’d come back to it, like they always would, because he had a dignity to maintain, and because he couldn't say no to her when he knew it was something he wanted too. She made him feel like a life full of sunshine might not be as fabricated as it seemed.

So, in the middle of the piece of music they were playing, he glanced at her, and she glanced back at him, smiling warmly. He almost forgot that she had been singing.

Hesitantly, and ever so slightly, he smiled back.

And then he started to sing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so proud of him *sob*


	4. Afterburn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this is my favorite next to Disaccharides because sweet baby moses Suki doesn't get enough love in the fandom 
> 
> I hope did her justice pummel me into the dust if i didn't

"Hey."

The little boy blinked, and looked up from the pavement he was focused on staring at. A girl that looked to be no younger than him was staring at him curiously, inspecting him with her hands on her knees as if he were some wild animal. She looked like him, too, with her tanned skin, thick black hair, and her wide, almond-shaped eyes.

"Hi." He replied back, taking a small rock and tossing it at the asphalt, watching it skitter across the road. The noirette sat next to him, observing him for a little while, before deciding to speak up again, quietly.

"Do you have any friends?"

His desistance on speaking must have gotten to her, for he noted the volume of her voice. He nodded, and when she asked who, he pointed to the literal definition of sunshine who was also probably choking on Skittles.

A grin split her face. "You know Poppy? She's my friend too!"

While his eyes widened, he really shouldn't've been surprised. With her cheery smile and friendly disposition, it was questionable as to why he was the only person who didn't fall for her charms. At least, it seemed that way.

"We should probably go help her," she suggested, hopping off of the curb and standing in front of him. He accepted the hand she offered, and nearly fall onto the ground when she tugged him up.

"My name's Suki. Suki Mendoza," she said, beaming. "You?"

"Brandon Figaroa."

* * *

"Get up."

Branch groaned, and huddled further into the blankets, desperately trying to ignore the Filipino. Said girl had her arms akimbo, frowned and slid her clunky headphones off her head and around her neck, strands of her hair falling along her face.

Turns out, Poppy wasn't the only one that his grandmother knew well.

Branch was only a kid when he met Suki. They were both small, loved music and had tanned skin, and they both knew Poppy. Their little group was as close to the Snack Pack as they could get.

Poppy, having being enraptured with all the knowledge form every Disney-Pixar movie, excelled where Suki didn't. Suki was no-nonsense. Her hands had a place on her hips, and a determined look found purchase in her face.

"I said get up."

He grunted, and ignored her. Thinking that she wasn't loud enough, she crossed her arms, and gave him one hell of a glare, both knowing full and well that he was awake.

Here's the thing with Suki.

You're allowed to feel down and contemplate your life. You're allowed to have your off days. You're allowed to look in the mirror and feel like shit. That's fine.

What you are _not_ allowed to do under _any_ _circumstance_ is to let that consume you. You're not allowed to sit on your ass and do nothing about that feeling, because once you're filled to the brim with it, there'll be nothing anyone can do.

"Up," she insisted, grabbed his arm, and tugged him from the bed, watching him topple gracelessly to the floor.

"It's alright to feel bad," she began, squatting down next to him. "But sometimes, you just gotta get up."

He gave her a stare, and she didn't waver. She always was a champion of staring contests. Sighing, he shakily accepted the hand she offered to him, and she pulled him up.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

* * *

She was seven when Branch introduced her to the urn in his grandma's bedroom.

It'd been only two years from their first encounter, back when she still thought of him as the lonely boy who'd toss rocks onto the road for the heck of it.

Much can happen in two years.

It all happened so quickly. One second she was hanging out with two of her new-found friends in a new country, and the second, one of them was being rushed to the hospital because his parents got caught in an accident.

Instantly, Poppy and Suki, the two tiny little kids, demanded the ambulance escort to be taken with him, and wouldn't leave until Poppy's mom scooped them up in her arms and drove them herself.

They waited for hours. A couple of doctors approached them and spoke with Poppy's mother in some secret adult language that kids could never decipher. They left. More waiting. More worrying. Naturally, Poppy asked where Rosipuff had gone to, and her mother explained that she was already with Branch, since the ambulance needed one of his parental figures to drive with them.

Poppy wouldn't stop crying, alternating to hugging her mom or hugging Suki or just clinging to them in one giant smoosh pile, blubbering about how much she didn't want Branch to die and about how he was so important to her.

And then she noticed something else. Branch was their best friend, and they were in a situation in which he had the possibility of actually dying and leaving them, and out of all that, Suki wasn't crying. At all.

Witchcraft.

Suki wasn't crying, but she was breathing. Hard. And fast, switching between breathing through her nose and out of her mouth, vice versa, or just converting to mouth-breathing. She was concentrating on looking at the hospital tile and digging her nails into her hands, sometimes scrunching her eyes closed and balling and un-balling her fists. Suki was doing something, but she was hell-bent on doing anything other than crying.

It was something that Branch did, Poppy realized and, bless her heart, attempted to follow suit, but every time she thought about her friend and hurt he could be and how bad he could feel and how something like this could have _devastating impacts on his life for as long as he would live_ just brought forth hell on her tear ducts. How in the name of Elmer's Glitter Glue was she supposed to stay calm when Branch was dying?

More waiting. A couple of doctors approached Poppy's mother, and they spoke amongst each other quietly, leaving Poppy on those horribly colored hospital benches to wait for the worst.

Eventually did her mother break from the group, keeping her composure until they left before proceeding to collapse next to her baby girl and cry. She took Poppy, her tiny little _musume_ and crushed her to her chest, softly sobbing into her hair. Her mum was tiny, and Poppy speculated that she was part-armadillo too, because _god_ , that woman could curl herself into the size of a beach ball if the need arose.

"What happened? What happened?" Poppy pleaded, talking her mother's face and trying to soothe it, trying to look into her eyes. Her mom's shoulders shook, and she explained through her tears.

"Brandon is..."

 _Dead. Dead and gone. Never coming back._ She lost her first friend, and in such a horrible way, too. There was a better way to go than in a car crash. There's a feeling, Poppy didn't know how to explain it, but a tinge inside you that you get when you realize that you, or your loved ones had the capability of dying, when suddenly mortality seems to make sense.

All Poppy could register as a kid was that it was a terrible feeling.

"...fine. Brandon's fine," her mother sighed, running her hands through the black strands of Poppy's hair. "But his parents didn't make it."

That all but made her burst into tears, and she crumpled against her mother, her tiny li'l arms wrapped around her mom's. Suki sighed. He was going to be heartbroken.

It took a few hours until he was the doctors' definition of stable, they all but raced into his room, peppering him with questions.  At the age of six, Poppy wasn't used to spending so much time past curfew and fell asleep in her mother's arms.

Suki, however, stood up just a little longer than her companion, and he told both her and Poppy's mother about how the doctors already told him of his parents' deaths.

Now, being seven, just a little over a year after his parents funeral, he introduced her to the urn filled with their ashes. It was jet-black with an intricate pattern of golden vines along the tip of its cap that curled around the bodice to the other end.

Poppy'd already seen it, so it was just Branch and Suki now, both just sitting on his grandmother's bed, eyeing it as if taking a step towards it would break it.

Suki blinked up at the picture of the couple, embracing each other with small smiles. They looked so happy.

"They look a little tired," Suki pointed out quietly. He nodded.

"Don't they?" Branch sighed, and laid back on the bed. Suki frowned, bit her lip, and tugged back on his arm.

"Come on," she insisted, then furrowed her brows when he ignored her.

"There's no use in feelin' blue. Sometimes you just gotta get up."

Suki stared in disbelief at the end credits, keyboard abandoned at her fingertips. That's it? No cutscene? No explanation? Just a gruesome resolution that left fans scrounging for answers?

They'd been playing the game for a couple hours, now, alternating between character deaths, speculating on the green-eyed girl who had gotten herself crushed into the body of the red-head, and why someone would set up cameras inside a traumatized six-year-old's bedroom. Creepy stuff. She could already smell what every art-platforming website'd do to the _well endowed_ ballerina.

Poppy and her mom had left, but not before briefly explaining that her mom was having a meeting with the town's mayor...for whatever reason, so Suki was her stand-in for the time being, given instructions to make sure Branch got something to eat, drink and wasn't bored.

Somehow it lead to this.

She sat back into his pillow, blowing air through her lips. An overly satisfied Branch clicked his tongue and rolled over, peering at the screen. "Told ya she was gonna get you. Why'd'ja even trust her in the first place?"

Suki scoffed, tipping her head up and crossing her arms in a fruitless attempt to salvage her dignity. "Says you. At least I finished the game without the patch."

"While getting yourself killed in the process. Congrats."

"Whatever," Suki dismissed, loading up the character screen. She turned to him, tucking a stray stand of orange-black hair behind her ear. "Do you think there's gonna be another game?"

"Depends on how close Matpat gets to figuring out the storyline. I mean, did you read what Scott posted? Dude couldn't even figure out if he was being serious or trolling him."

Suki chuckled, the latest upload resurfacing to memory. Mathew had gotten close to resolving the game's plot when the fifth game was released. Followed by the DLC.

"True...but hey, at least we know he was wrong about the third game. If Michael's what we think he is, than it was definitely no dream."

"Right," Branch muttered, hopping off the bed to stretch his arms, wiggling his prosthetic. "Because entering numbers into the walls makes perfect sense."

"Well so does keeping a secret child-murdering facility under your son's home," she shot back without missing a beat.

He smirked down at her. "Touché."

Suki turned her attention back to the laptop screen, clicking through the various characters, whistling tunelessly.

She remembered when there were only four original characters. Ah, the glory days of being hit with sinister faces and confusing messages. Then Scott released the second game, the fandom blew up in tandem and you'd be getting hit with Deviantart  narratives and gender wars based on a fox wearing lipstick.

Then the third game was released and everyone flinched from the ever-evolved balloon child who graduated from being annoying to downright terrifying, the fourth game brought forth Youtubers who got killed on the first night, and the fifth game—

Well, no one really hated that game and there wasn't any reason _to_ hate it. The animation accompanied the little girl's voice acting was phenomenal. Not to mention the undying A.I level of the leader.

"Hey, come lookit this." Suki tugged at his pajama's sleeve and smiled when she heard him collapse to the floor. She gestured to the screen once she got his attention, raising a brow in question. "You recognize this guy?"

He blinked at the white-masked amalgamation. "Obviously. He was the one outside the window while you were gettin' scooped."

"Uh-huh, but do you _recognize_ him recognize him?"

"You mean from the hype posters?" he inquired, cocking a brow. "Yeah, I do."

A grin played at her lips, indicating that there was some special deeper meaning that she wanted him to understand. "But what'd he _say_?"

"'There's a little bit of me in every body?'"

She clapped. "Exactly!"

"This literally makes no sense."

"Look." She pointed at the character and looked at Branch, determined. "You saw all those empty shells. They've already been there today. You know what that means?"

"That they're all serial killers and you're delusional for believing them in the first place?"

She swatted him on the arm as a reprimand. "Don't diss the talking ones, Branch. They's special. They've got aspirations."

He snorted. "Right, right."

"What I'm saying is that he's...some sort of...fusion."

"So they fucking danced to freedom."

"I take it that you haven't seen The Living Tombstone."

* * *

Strewn across his bed, playing with Branch's hair from behind was when she realized that Branch would make one heck of a pizza chef. She told this to him, and the sound he made would forever be branded into her head, triumphantly.

"Um? What?"

"I'm sayin' what I'm sayin, man. You're hair's oily enough to cook four personal pan pizzas." She tilted her head a tad. "And marinate a chicken."

He grunted, similar to a moose, and his lower lip jutted childishly. Was he pouting? Suki laughed, and gave him a noogie for the heck of it.

"Y'know what this means?" She shook his shoulders briefly before settling her chin against his left shoulder.

A second moose noise. "That I'm Mexican?"

"You're mixed Latino," she pointed out, and then smiled. "But, it means that Poppy could dye your hair without it changing color! I'm thinkin' blue. You?"

"I'm thinking none," he replied.

"Yeah, green sounds nice too!" She took his head and observed it from different angles. "Or maybe Turquoise? Purple? I dunno, dude."

"How 'bout no dye? In my hair? At all?" He exaggerated, making wide gesticulations with his arms, getting another laugh out of the Filipino, who, in reply, flipped onto her back and settled her head upon his flannel-clad shoulder, grinning.

"Wanna hear a joke?":

"No."

"Great! Wha'd'ya call a security guard in a Samsung store?"

"Please don't—

"A guardian of the galaxy!"

Suki giggled through Branch's subsequent groan, the bangs of her hair splaying across his arm when he brought a hand to his forehead.

* * *

Poppy opened the door to Branch's home. His grandmother had eventually given her a key. She took deep, slow breaths, closing her eyes and balling and un-balling her fists.

 _Ochitsuita, musume_ , her mother had said only hours before. His name was Hiroki Hanako, he was the mayor of their town, and he was closer to her than she could ever possible imagine.  

How was she supposed to keep calm?

Why was she just getting to know him now? He was so sweet! He liked to draw and he loved and kids and was the guy who'd pop in nearby schools when he had the time and he told awesome stories and had a big ol' smile and squashed every political trope that'd been ingrained into her.

Branch and Suki greeted her at the door, the two sharing nods, and Suki relinquished her watch over Branch for the day. Branch, happy to see her again, wrapped her up in a hug she easily reciprocated.

When she pulled away, she bit her lip, sending him a message that something was wrong, and that something wasn't okay. Suki took notice of it too, and she placed her hands on her hips, cocking an eyebrow.

"What's wrong?" She asked slowly. Good ol' Suki, already knowing there was a problem and not wasting breath asking if there was one.

Poppy sighed, and ran her hands through her hair, which was already in need of another dye. Yup, yup, yup, her name's Poppy, nice to meet you, donor number three hundred and twenty-two. Did you she's been wanting to meet you her whole goddamn life?

Thing is, how was she supposed to explain that she just met her biological father?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TAKE THIS FOREVER CLIFFHANGER 'KAY
> 
> But???? I love???? Suki???? Please give me more of this strong filipino dj please (they game they're playing is Sister Location, fite me)
> 
> And that's a wrap! If there's a fic that I didn't post or that AO3 consumed into the fiery pits of code then lemme know!
> 
>  
> 
> [anyways, come chat](https://chasinthecloudsaway.tumblr.com/)


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